MANLY MATES
2003. A wild and wicked farce. 7m, 4w.
Set in 1972, Manly Mates features the most famously controversial NSW state premier of them all, Sir Robert Askin. Bob leads a team of his more outrageous Sydney mates, movers and ‘business associates’, including a Police Commissioner, a property-developing local Councillor, an SP bookie, a strung-out bagman, an apprentice female politician prepared to give her all, a poker machine salesman from Chicago, and, unexpectedly, Bob’s sherry-drinking wife Mollie. They all collide at the beautiful Hotel Manly, in an upstairs bar overlooking the ferry wharf, where Bob’s regular summer Saturday is destined to spin out of control under the eager eye of an undercover cub reporter from ‘The Manly Daily’. High energy action.


MY HENRY LAWSON
2002. A drama. 2m, 1w.
Covering the years 1896-1902, this revealing play - in turns comic and searing - examines the traumatic marriage of Henry and Bertha Lawson, and confronts those two enduring icons of the Australian imagination, Lawson and ‘Banjo’ Paterson. In 1896 Paterson is Lawson’s solicitor as well as his rival ‘bush poet’. Stunned to discover that the cash-strapped, heavy-drinking Lawson has secretly married a 19-year old nurse, Paterson tries to advise his friend and client. The play follows Henry and Bertha to the goldfields of Western Australia, and then to London, literary heart of the Empire. Paterson also comes to London, on assignment from the Sydney Morning Herald, and finds them in a desperate condition and with Bertha’s sanity under attack. But, returning to Sydney, it’s Henry who attempts suicide, from a North Head cliff top.

OPEN FOR INSPECTION
1999. Farce. 4m, 4w.
This lively laugh machine is dedicated to the proposition that "buying and selling property in Sydney is a total farce". The property being auctioned is a 1970s semi, "delivering a quality lifestyle with harbour glimpses", according to its glossy adverts. We visit on three ‘open for inspections’ and at the catastrophic climactic auction. Television producer Paul and his high-spending wife Griselda want to sell the house as soon as possible because they’ve got a vast bridging loan on a ritzy pile overlooking Balmoral Beach. Estate agent Hattie is equally desperate for she needs the commission and the approval of her wayward married boyfriend, the company’s top auctioneer. Two sets of odd couples vie for the house, each with their own desperate motives, and completing the cast is an outsider who calls himself ‘Chook’. Somehow he’s got his own key and is sleeping on the expensive sofa. What can he be looking for?

THE MERRY WIDOW FROM BLUEGUM CREEK
Music by Franz Lehar
New orchestrations by Stephen Gray
The Merry Widow is unchallenged the most popular Operetta of the 20th Century. There have been numerous English translations of the libretto since its original 1905 production, though most seem lame and unfunny in the 21st century. The story is set in the Paris embassy of mythical backwoods country, Pontevedria, to where comes the Widow on a quest to find her childhood sweetheart. Frank Hatherley’s tasty notion was to keep Paris, keep the embassy, keep the basic plot, keep absolutely all of Lehar’s magnificent music, but change Pontevedria to the world’s newest nation, Australia. Instantly the story is fresher, the characters more relevent and - a huge plus! — the jokes and language are far, far funnier. This is a big show, with 14 principals, chorus and dancing girls. But the sparkling new orchestrations by Stephen Grey are brilliantly compact: it’s possible to use just 5 strings and 2 keyboards, though there are parts for optional Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, Percussion.

(Frank has also prepared a US version, entitled THE MERRY WIDOW FROM MAGNOLIA CREEK, in which the embassy is in the hands of the Southern Confederacy. He’d be happy to work closely with an American company/group to see this one staged. Script on request.)

NED KELLY’S SISTER’S TRAVELLING CIRCUS
Songs by Jeremy Barlow
1979, revised 2001. Play with Songs. 5m, 2w.
This small-scale musical was originally commissioned and successfully staged by Melbourne’s Pram Factory in 1979, and it went on to play the 1980 Sydney Festival in a tent in Hyde Park. Set in 1898, Kate Kelly is touring round the backblocks with her tawdry show celebrating the life and death of her infamous brother Ned, hung 18 years previously. In Gundagai one of her small cast does a runner and she has to employ a local actor at the last minute. This ring-in proves to be more trouble than he’s worth, possibly an Irish terrorist on the loose. The fiendishly clever plot simultaneously covers the afternoon rehearsing of the newcomer (who proves to be a terrible actor) at the same time as the disastrous evening performance. Kate’s show is packed with songs: at least one of the performers needs to be able to play guitar or fiddle or squeezebox. The original production was praised by Melbourne and Sydney critics: "A lively piece of theatre, crammed with surprises"; "a punchy, zestful romp"; "a clever and economical piece of theatre which offers two plays for the price of one".